Sunday, March 4, 2012

So how does a restaurant get a gold star? And what's this x-factor, anyway?

First, a bit about our food philosophy in general. Food is a very subjective thing, and we all have our own opinions. And Miko and I luckily have pretty similar tastes. We're fairly adventurous eaters -- we'll try most things, although Miko has a higher tolerance for things like fish guts or gray curly snails, and I have more of an ability (i.e. ANY AT ALL) to handle spicy or bitter foods. But we don't consider ourselves hard-core foodies -- for example, we are nowhere near as picky as mmm-yoso (Hi Kirk!), and for us, the experience of dining is almost as important as the food itself. We tend to shy away from fancy/fine restaurants; we prefer a cozy hole-in-the-wall.

The gold star is the Convoy Conquest's highest honor! These are the restaurants that we truly feel love for.* Usually, this requires a combination of great food AND x-factor.

We first realized the importance of the x-factor when we found Big Joy Family Bakery -- when you walk inside, you just have this feeling of being loved and taken care of. Or Chilies Thai Gourmet, where we originally wanted to give it a gold star because the adorable cook made us so happy, even though the food was maybe not that amazing.

This is not to say that, e.g., Big Joy is necessarily less delicious than Sage, but that its x-factor is a larger part of its appeal. We are measuring the RATIO of deliciousness here, not the AMOUNT of deliciousness. (Because that would be a giiiiant can of worms to open.)This is, of course, extremely unscientific, and the numbers are not really quantifying anything specific -- this was the best we could do to explain a concept that is terribly nebulous and subjective.

*We decided that we have to go to a restaurant at least twice to give it a gold star, to make sure we aren't being overly influenced by unfair factors like being grouchy or STARVING.